flowers

o

Monday, December 22, 2014

Teaching King Lamoni

Hey family!

Well this week was pretty normal with all of the craziness of missionary work. We have been working hard this week to find some prepared people and we have had some interesting experiences. First of all we found this guy last week named Vladimir Viena.... my companion and I were laughing so hard because that name is so vampirish.... his friends call him Vladi :) He came to church yesterday and he is praying to know if he should get baptized. He is really cool and we hope that he progresses. Okay now for one of the funniest experiences of my whole mission. Last week Nancy (our recent convert) brought someone to church with her. We went to visit her this week and we found out that the girl she had brought to church was a girl that was now living with them and helping them around the house. Obviously we decided that we should teach her. This girls name is Alicia and she is 18-years-old. She seemed really cool and everything but as we started talking to her we found out that she lives in a little indian village like 10 miles up the river......when I say indian I am talking pure indian here! She has never heard of God, she has no idea who Jesus Christ is and she has never heard of the word sin...... also another catch is that she speaks this old indian dialect called Shipibo.... that is the language the native indian tribes speak here. Guys.... I dont speak Shipibo!! Also in the culture down here, the native indians are terrified of white people. They call us "pela caras" which translates into face peeler. They think that white people only come to peel their faces and steal their organs. Alright so now you can all imagine how this first lesson went. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life!!! For the first time ever I felt so much empathy for Ammon and his brothers. I seriously felt like I was teaching King Lamoni! We are going to try and keep teaching her even though she speaks broken spanish and is terrifyed of us! But the Lord found a way for her to hear the gospel even though she has grown up in an uncivilized community in the middle of the jungle. The lord works in mysterious ways. We are going to do the best we can with her. I love you all, talk to you on Thursday!!